Terms of Use & Netiquette
for Communication on Social Media Accounts of the College for Social Sciences and Humanities (University Alliance Ruhr)
In our actions as in our communication, we are committed to transparency, anti-discrimination, and respectful dialogue. We do not tolerate any form of discrimination, harassment, or hate speech. If you interact with us and other users via our digital platforms, please respect the terms of use and netiquette detailed below. Thank you for your consideration.
We reserve the right to delete posts and/or ban users from accounts we administer if our terms are disregarded or violated. In the assessment of comments, we adhere to the principle of commensurability. In case we decide to delete a post as a result of careful consideration, we do so not to censor but to ensure constructive, non-violent, and respectful dialogue, to protect the rights of others, and to safeguard good scientific practice.
Please acknowledge and abide by the following terms:
- Any kind of discrimination or discreditation of individual persons or groups of people is not tolerated on our accounts, including false or unproven allegations.
- We do not tolerate abusive language, hate speech or comments of an insulting, defamatory, seditious or youth-endangering character. The same applies for statements containing threats or posts with pornographic or illegal content. Those comments will be hidden or deleted.
Based on the German Federal Law to combat right-wing extremism and hate crimes (Gesetz zur Bekämpfung des Rechtsextremismus und der Hasskriminalität, PDF), we are obliged to report severe cases to the authorities, e.g., threats of dangerous bodily harm or the approval of criminal offences not yet committed.
- We reserve the right to file a complaint with the authorities if an offence according to German Criminal Laws is committed.
- The College is committed to standards of good scientific practice, as outlined, for example, in the Code of Conduct “Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice” issued by the DFG (German Research Foundation), as well as the Principles for Safeguarding Good Scientific Practice at the University of Duisburg-Essen. We do not condone if science-related statements willfully or grossly negligently include false information, violate intellectual property rights or impair research activities.
- We may remove statements if they include inaccurate, misleading, or false claims, unverified theories, or unproven allegations or suspicions.
- In case intellectual property rights or privacy rights of other persons are violated, we will remove the affected content.
- If links to external websites are included in comments, we reserve the right to review the contents and may remove the URL or the whole post.
- We have a strict policy of not allowing advertising / commercial content / spam on our accounts – this includes forms of content marketing, campaigning for political parties or political groups, calling for demonstrations as well as other forms of campaigning.
Netiquette
We kindly ask you to respect our netiquette for discussion and sharing content:
- Please keep it factual and refer to the topic of the original post. Please substantiate your opinion and refrain from distributing unsubstantiated theories, speculation or insinuations.
- Please be respectful and polite. Address and treat others like you would want to be treated yourself. Please refrain from polemics, provocations, and allegations.
- Respect copyrights: Make sure you hold the rights or have permission to distribute content that is not your own. Any use of or reference to works of others must be clearly identified as such and referenced correctly unless licensed under public domain.
- Respect privacy rights: Do not disclose personal data of other persons (such as address, phone number, nationality) and do not post images depicting other people without their consent. We also strongly recommend you to not disclose any personal data of your own.
- Language: The primary language used on our Social Media accounts is English (BE). We kindly ask you to discuss and comment in English.
- Posts that were automatically generated and not written by a human individual are unwelcome.
